


the air grows cold around me and you

by Stratisphyre



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, seances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27271603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stratisphyre/pseuds/Stratisphyre
Summary: Jack wasn't unaccustomed to the nuances of seances.The meeting of two immortals.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Missed Connections Exchange





	the air grows cold around me and you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tolazytocomeupwithaname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tolazytocomeupwithaname/gifts).



> For the Doctor Who Missed Connections challenge - the prompt was "Jack Harkness, Lady Me" and I wanted to take a slightly different approach. Tolazytocomeupwithaname - I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to all the mods who put this challenge/event together!
> 
> The title is from STARS "I Died So I Could Haunt You" which seemed appropriate.

Jack wasn't unaccustomed to the nuances of seances. There was, as with everything these days, involved Etiquette. One did not, for example, point out any unusually lumpy drapery positioned behind the medium. Or make note of fake hands poking out the sleeves of their (generally and appropriately dramatic) black dresses. And guests were expected to outright ignore the undetectably small wires attaching themselves at various points around the room. Wilful suspension of disbelief and the power of suggestion was a helluva one-two punch, combined with the seductive draw of the forbidden, and in these days of buttoned-up repression the sheer joy of being able to cut loose and blame it on the fear practically demanded adherence to the particular norms involved. 

And while he was well-prepared to observe the etiquette, he noted with some interest that none of the usual chicanery seemed present when he entered Lady Shrewsbury’s parlour for the evening’s ‘entertainment.’ 

He was fairly confident the skull in the middle of the table was real. Otherwise, nothing jumped out at him as being a setup for any sort of show. Which, to be fair, was why he’d wheedled himself an invitation in the first place. 

The medium--Madame Helena--had the great pleasure of being the talk of all London. Her seances were considered the foremost in society, and there was not a person, alive or otherwise apparently, capable of refusing her. To Jack she looked all of seventeen, and while the petulant set to her jaw might've been charming in any other circumstance, he was sitting in the parlour of Lady Shrewsbury not only as a guest, but as a Torchwood agent sent to verify whether or not Madame Helena was different than any other charlatan operating in London. Torchwood wanted confirmation as to whether the evening’s special guest, unlike every other medium in the business, could actually call up the spirits of the dead.

Initial impressions made him think he was going to have to fudge a lot of details on his report. 

Jack was seated to the left of a terribly adorable full-lipped gentleman and his wife, an equally attractive young lady of African descent, who favoured him with a small uptick of her amazingly full lips. Maybe, when all this was said and done...

"Captain Harkness, thank you for rounding out our table," Lady Shrewsbury said. As far as middle-aged matrons went, she was one of the less objectionable ones. Jack'd made a point of introducing himself at a party a couple of weeks ago in hopes of getting an invite to her coming seance. Suggesting he had some tragedy in his past and was in mourning for a lost love certainly helped. Wasn't entirely a lie, either.

"Harkness?" Madame Helena repeated, the loss of honorific eliciting a scandalized murmur from one of the other women in the room, presumably one who believed social transgressions a greater sin than necromancy.

"Captain Jack Harkness, at your service." He'd pretty reliably escaped the habit of offering his hand for women to shake, though from the keen look Madame Helena leveled at him, he suspected she wouldn't have minded.

They sized one another up as subtly as they could manage. He detected no obvious anachronisms; even the cleverest wardrobe department slipped up occasionally and he’d always been good at noticing small details. Her entire persona was spot on, if she was a time traveler. The real giveaway was her eyes. He knew better than to assume that the women of the day were all cow-eyed meekness and pretty decoration (if nothing else, Alice and Emily thoroughly disabused him of the notion), but human eyes rarely betrayed such depth and age-old weariness. To be frank, the only eyes he'd ever compare them to was the Doctor's.

His heart twisted in his chest just as Madame Helena said, "Let's begin."

The theatrics were impressive--a man had to go a long way to see decent practical effects these days, and he let himself be impressed for a moment. The candelabra in the middle of the table sprung to life, the spirits rapped out a lively beat conspicuously emanating from beneath the table close to Madame Helena’s seat, and the room helpfully dropped a couple of degrees. All in all, not a bad show, though he couldn’t quite tell how she was doing it.

And then she got to speaking.

"Cynthia," she whispered in a croaky, faux-masculine voice. "Is Cynthia here?"

Tentative, horrible hope burst across Cynthia McNaughton's face. Jack sort of hated the medium a moment. "Joseph, is that you?"

Madame Helena offered a noncommittal hum. "You have a question you wanted to ask me?"

"Yes. Only... did you intend for Robert to go to school at Thetford?"

“I intended for him to have the best possible education, regardless of where he might find it.” 

Cynthia’s entire frame sagged in relief. “Then you have no objections with him attending St. Alban’s instead?”

There was the minutest pause; Jack wasn’t sure anyone else noticed. “Your father’s _Alma Mater_? Of course not. I trust you to do what is best for him in my absence.” 

Now _that_ was interesting. He’d done some digging on all the participants in preparation for the seance, and even he hadn’t been able to find anything on Cynthia McNaughton’s father. He seriously missed the conveniences of search engines. 

The seance continued in the same fashion for a quarter of an hour. Startling revelations he couldn’t chalk up to cold reading, combined with a suitably gruesome atmosphere. No wonder she was so popular; he could very well be in the presence of the real deal. 

Rose would've gotten a kick out of it. Christ, he missed her. 

"Rose," Madame Helena declared.

Jack's attention whipped back to her, brow drawn, and found her chasmic eyes fixed on him. 

"Rose," she repeated. Jack's hand tightened on his neighbour's until the woman gasped in pain. "She is lost to you, but not dead." Jack glared at her, even as his thoughts flit to Rose and the Doctor. Her face twisted up. "They both are."

Jack glowered the entire remainder of the seance, right up until Lady Shrewsbury finally ushered the rest of her guests out. 

Jack whipped around and turned on Madame Helena once they were the only ones remaining. "How did you know her name?"

"I've waited a long time to meet you, Captain Harkness," she replied with infuriating calm.

"Tell me."

She sighed and pointedly coughed. From across the room, one of the shadows coalesced into a solid figure, hidden away from curious eyes by a particularly good psychic shield. At first look, he was the size and shape of your average hired goon. Only when a secondary set of eyelids rose to reveal bright orange pupils did Jack realize she'd employed an umbravit. 

He allowed himself only a second of disappointment before his anger returned full force.

"That's the bit? Use your friend here to skim people's surface thoughts and say exactly what they want to hear?" How _dare_ she do that to him, and shove Rose and the Doctor in his face?

The alien, usually nonvocal, emitted a low whine of distress, until Madame Helena pressed her palm to its side.

"We should talk," she said. She rattled off an address on Belgrave Square. "I'm currently staying as the guest of Lord and Lady Bloxham. Call on me tomorrow after lunch, when they're out of the house. We can talk."

"Why?" Jack demanded. Other than her work with the umbravit, which he wasn't planning to report when he hadn't gotten some of his more radically non-lethal measures codified into Torchwood policy, she was just another run of the mill con artist. Nothing even remotely supernatural about her.

"You and I have a mutual friend," she told him. "He once asked me to watch for you."

Before Jack could get anything resembling clarification, Lady Shrewsbury returned and Jack was obliged to bid her good evening, lest he be disinvited from her ball the following weekend, which could be very inconvenient considering there was an artifacts dealer Torchwood needed him to arrest and the party presented the best opportunity.

Thus it came that the following day Jack showed up at the doorstep of Lord and Lady Bloxham, applied for an audience, and was redirected to their visitor.

Unlike the previous evening, Madame Helena was dressed in a wholly respectable mutton-sleeved blouse and contrasting skirt, and seemed to all intents and purposes a well-bred young woman of no mean fortune.

They observed the obligatory niceties as the servants laid out a brilliant tea service, and the moment they were alone she turned shrewd eyes on him. "How old are you, Captain Harkness?"

"Forty. Or thereabouts."

"How old are you _really_?"

"Well, I've been told I can pass as thirty, but any younger than that and I get accused of fishing for compliments."

A flash of irritation passed across her face, but when he offered nothing more she sighed. "Wonderful. He tells me I'll eventually find you, and when I do you're still an infant."

"Hey!"

"Captain Harkness, I have walked this earth for eleven centuries."

Jack bit his tongue and, at length, took a sip of his tea. He’d never really gotten the hang of tea, and had only reluctantly forced himself to drink it since landing in London because it was expected of him.

"When I met the Doctor, he saved my life by cursing me with immortality. He told me that eventually I would find other immortals, and I have begged and pleaded with every god I've ever heard of to make the words true. And now that I find you, you're barely twice as old as I was when this happened. Forgive me if I consider it to be an injustice."

Jack frowned at her, teacup shaking in his hand, the saucer rattling loud in the otherwise quiet room. "What do you mean, immortal?"

For the first time, Madame Helena seemed taken aback. "You didn't know?"

Jack failed to answer, opting to shove a tartlet into his mouth. He focused on the texture, and the flavours of lemon and almond. Anything to avoid the judoon in the room. Madame Helena seemed satisfied to let him chew. He’d known he couldn’t die, despite now-countless attempts to prove otherwise, but true immortality? The sort of which, he guessed, kept you looking seventeen for eleven hundred years? 

Nice to know he’d never have to worry about wrinkles, at least.

"And he gave you my name specifically?" he finally demanded.

Madame Helena nodded. "He told me you’d come round to me eventually. The phrasing struck me as important, so I wrote it down. I didn’t imagine it would happen like this."

"Well. Sorry to disappoint you."

"Captain Harkness, in the many years I've lived, I've found that disappointments are quickly forgotten in favour of their happier counterparts." She placed a delicate hand atop his. "Immortality isn't enviable, no matter what the philosophers say. But you eventually find people who make it more bearable."

He twisted his wrist to catch her hand in his own. Touch, as always, remained his greatest source of comfort. 

Immortality.

Okay.

He could find a way to make it work. If nothing else, it gave him more time to get Torchwood in order.

“Now that you found me, what are you going to do with me?” A pale attempt at his usual flirtation.

“Nothing at all,” Madame Helena told him. Jack frowned. “Unlike our mutual acquaintance, I’m not looking for temporary companionship from someone more than a millennium my junior. Come and find me when you’re older.”

“Ouch.”

“My apologies, but I’m sure you will come to understand in time.” 

He took it as a dismissal and slinked out of the room, trying not to feel as though he’d tucked his tail between his legs.

* * *

When he finally reunited with the Doctor, there was all together too much running and screaming and torture to ask him about Madame Helena. And the time after that there were Daleks and Rose and the end of the world ("Thursdays," he moaned to Ianto, after the fact, "Never could get the hang of them." To which he’d received an aggrieved eyeroll and a weapons-grade amount of paperwork to sign.) And after _that_ encounter he was in mourning and Alonso was right there and he was only mostly human, after all.

He encountered Madame Helena before he crossed paths with the Doctor a fourth time.

He spotted her in a crowded room, in a late Twenty-Fifth Century party oddly reminiscent of the last one they'd attended together. She was dressed in the current New Rococo fashion, all ruffles and bows and synthetic silks, and had returned to her shtick as a medium. This time however, since everyone was expecting the lavish psychic showmanship, she'd employed the practical effects of the era when they'd first met, to the shock and wonder of everyone trying to figure out how she was doing it. She swindled them all with a delicate smile and the same fathomless eyes, the depths now reflected back in Jack's when they caught one another's attention across the room.

Was he older than she was now? Could he count the time he spent encased in the earth? 

She cold read the room with heartless, ruthless proficiency. Not a dry eye in the house. Twelve out of ten for showmanship, the artistry of her performance smooth and practiced and relentless in its sentimentality. She, wisely, did not bring up the Doctor or Rose, though when her eyes passed over him he could tell she was considering it. 

This time, when they met afterwards, there wasn't such a concern for propriety, and their host left them to their own devices after everyone else was chased out.

"Madame Helena," he said in their first greeting in more than eight centuries.

"Captain Harkness," she replied with a small smile. "I think it high time you call me Lady Me, as my... acquaintances are welcome to do."

He bowed over her hand. "Lady Me." The words sat with quintessential rightness on his tongue. "Delightful to see you again."

Her look pierced his very soul before she smiled and said, "We’ve met under very similar circumstances, haven’t we?" She looked momentarily confused until he nodded, at which point surety returned to her eyes. Jack’d encountered her sort of immortality before, the type that didn’t allow a person to keep their memories. Whatever magic Rose worked to gift him eternal life, his memories remained in his mind like a well-loved album he could flip through at any time, flitting to the back of his brain and remaining unobtrusive until he called for them. He could even recall how Lady Shrewsbury’s room smelled when he’d first met Lady Me, the very particular scent of lemon oil and silver polish soaked into every surface.

“You know, I never did forget what you told me.”

“Oh? You’ll have to remind me,” she said, face going suspiciously blank. He tilted his head to consider her closely. 

“You told me that I’d find people to make my life more bearable. I did. I will.” 

She blinked at him before the careful neutrality resolved into a small smile. “I’m glad for you, then.” She stood, all thirty pounds of silk and lace falling around her petite frame. 

“You also told me I’d eventually come to understand why you couldn’t be bothered to spend time with someone a millennium your junior.”

“I did?” Her brow momentarily furrowed and then smoothed into neutrality. “If I did, then it’s because I’d already lost more than you could have imagined. Trying to speak to anyone about that depth of grief who hasn’t experienced it themselves…”

“Arrogant of you to assume I couldn’t understand, even then.” In the intermittent years, he’d dealt with the sort of profound grief she alluded to, but that didn’t excuse the casual dismissal of his first early years of loss, and as far as he was concerned, never would. 

“Well. Arrogance, as I’ve come to learn, is one of my failings.” 

“At least we have that in common.”

Commotion from the other room drew his attention. “Looks like they’ve started pouring the wine. Care to join me?” He held out his arm. 

Lady Me smiled. “Yes. This time, I think I can safely agree.”


End file.
